UCO Bank To Offload Rs 500-Cr Bad Loans

UCO Bank has decided to bid about Rs 500 crore of the stressed assets next month. The bank is sitting on an Rs 1,285-crore pile of non-performing assets. About Rs 300 crore of the bad loan the bank has on its books today were old agricultural bad loans that have got reclassified as NPAs, after the two-year moratorium from 2004-05. Some NPAs also resulted from fraudulent housing loans. All the other NPAs are fully backed by securities. The bank has 48 accounts of ''big ticket'' (over Rs 5 crore) NPAs amounting to a little over Rs 500 crore.